“Um!...” said Dad. “Looks kind of like running away, doesn’t it? As if you had been scared out?”
“Eh? Scared out?” Catty’s lips came together thin again and his eyes got glittery. “I don’t allow nobody to say I’m scared, Mr. Moore.”
Dad nodded and says: “That’s right. But you can’t stop them from thinking it. Not by fighting with your fists, anyhow. There’s only one way to keep folks from thinking you’re afraid of a thing, and that is to show them you aren’t.”
Catty looked at Dad a long time and didn’t say a word, but you could see he was trying to study out what Dad meant.
“Aren’t you ever kind of lonesome when you’re walking about the country—and never settling down any place to get acquainted with folks?” asked Dad.
“Not when I’m with my Dad,” said Catty, and the way he said it you almost got the idea he was proud of his father.
“Good boy!... But don’t you ever want to have other boys to play with, and go to school, maybe, and know folks, and have a chum like most boys have?”
Catty didn’t answer, but sat looking out of the window.
“Do you know what would hurt Mrs. Gage’s feelings more than anything else in the world?”
“No, sir.”